Thursday, September 11, 2014

For September 11, on the day after Obama's speech about sending troops back to Iraq, here is a series of tweets from Jay the Nerd Kid, who identifies herself as a "muslim cis queer neuroatypical intersectional geek femme genius | writer for hire":

All I'm gonna say to white folks about 9/11 is that I guarantee al-Qaeda fucked up my life more than it fucked up yours.

Moderate religion and religious harmony were the real targets of 9/11, so...yeah.

"They said some Muslim terrorists exploded a building." "Aaminah, aren't you Muslim?" I was forced to grow up at eleven years old.

I know some of my followers will get this. I wasn't allowed to be a kid after that. I became both ambassador and target.

When full-grown adult strangers are interrogating you about something you had nothing to do with, you grow up. Fast.

One girl bullied me for a whole term. I was so used to being abused by then that it took me that long to tell someone about it.

I was lucky. I went to a good school. They suspended the girl. Didn't stop the people screaming from their cars, of course.

I used to catch the bus home from school. Daily gauntlet of hate and threats.

Walking through the mall? Whispers. Suspicious looks. "Raghead" muttered just loud enough for me to hear.

My hijabi sisters still get followed around stores, btw. Don't get the idea that things have gotten better.

The rest you can imagine. Being spat at, people egging our house. "Random" searches.

"Jokes" about me being a terrorist. I started laughing along after a while because it was less embarrassing than crying or yelling.

This all happened in Australia, in case you thought anywhere in the west was safe or is safe for people like me.

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Third of four daughters, raised in a rural area outside of a small town. Now living in a moderately large city, making media and immersed in other people's media. Finally cleaning out the filing cabinet and loading its contents to the cloud.